By OWEN BOSS
Staff Writer
NORTHAMPTON - Thanks to grant funding secured by the Amherst-based Institute for Training and Development, two groups of local high schoolers will travel to Norway this semester as part of an international exchange program.
Two different trips, one planned for February, the other for April, will send 18 sophomores and two teachers from Northampton High School and Amherst Regional High School to the northern European country for a three-week visit.
According to Julie Hooks-Davis, executive director at ITD, both three-week programs will span week-long school vacations, so the 40 students and teachers participating will miss only two weeks of school. Each 20-person group, she said, will be comprised of nine sophomores and one teacher from each high school.
While abroad, she said students are expected to keep up with homework from their home schools and will be allotted time to do so during their weekends in Norway.
"There was an exchange that we did a couple of years ago with the Netherlands and the lasting connection between students at NHS and that school was just fabulous," Hooks-Davis said. "On both sides of the exchange, the kids involved quickly became inseparable."
The two Norwegian schools participating in the project are Lillestrom High School and Jessheim High School.
Lillestrom Videregaende Skole is a suburban college preparatory high school in the greater Oslo area and Jessheim Vidergende Skole is located in a rural area about 31 miles from Oslo.
Both schools conduct some classes in English, and, as English language fluency is a priority in Norway, most Norwegian high school students can speak conversational English.
The exchange program will focus on the theme of environmentalism, especially climate change. While in Norway, participants will develop plans for the environmental projects and present them at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo before returning to the states. Program activities abroad will be school-based for the first two weeks and American participants will reside with Norwegian host families. In the third week, the Northampton High and Amherst students will stay in a hotel, where they will work on their environment projects, take part in a workshop at an environmental organization, and enjoy some cultural activities.
Once home, the students will implement these environment projects, which are geared to improving their communities. Participating students will conduct school or community presentations on the Norway program and share their planned projects for bettering the local environment.
Funding for this project is provided by the Youth Programs Division, Bureau for Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. The ITD grant will pay for all expenses for the 40 American participants, including air fare, additional transportation, meals, materials,and accommodations.
For information about the exchange, visit ITD's website: www.itd-amherst.org.
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Superintendent search
The panel tasked with finding the city's next Superintendent of Schools will hold a series of workshops this month aimed at gathering ideas and opinions from local residents.
The search follows Superintendent Isabelina Rodriguez's announcement this fall that, after seven years as Northampton's schools chief, she does not wish to renew her contract when it expires in June. Several weeks after the announcement, Rodriguez accepted an offer to take over as superintendent in Granby.
With the help of the Marlborough-based New England School Development Council, an 11-member Superintendent Search Committee will sit down with the parents of students and area residents in the hopes of identifying desirable personality traits and a level of expertise that participants are looking for the new superintendent to have.
"We will hold six focus groups in total and once all of those are done, NESDEC is going to report back to us with a list of the attributes they think (the superintendent) should possess," School Committee clerk Nicole Markel said. "That is really going to help us with our screening of potential candidates."
The members of the search panel are Susan Biggs, a Northampton High chemistry teacher and coach; Sharon Carlson, a physical education teacher at JFK Middle School; Julie Hooks-Davis, co-chairwoman of the Northampton Education Foundation's Small Grants Committee; Karen Jarvis-Vance, the school system's director of health and safety education; Martha Jenkins, Northampton High parent; Greg Kerstetter, a fifth-grade teacher at Ryan Road School; Jason Mark, a Leeds Elementary School parent; Police Capt. Scott Savino, a Northampton High parent; Gail E. Scordilis, director of educational outreach at Smith College; and School Committee members James Young and Stephanie Pick.
The focus group sessions, which will take about 90 minutes, will be held in the Community Room at JFK Middle School. The schedule is as follows:
Parents of students will gather on Wednesday, Jan. 19, at 9 a.m. and Thursday, Jan. 20, at 6 p.m. City employees and community members will meet on Wednesday, Jan. 19, at 11 a.m.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com
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